Future Leaders: 6 Key Skills Required for Next Gen Leadership
Discover what’s required to develop future leaders capable of creating inclusive workplaces that meet modern challenges and expectations.
Global demand for future leaders is rapidly growing, with 85% of businesses reporting an urgency to train employees with leadership potential. Factor in 63% of millennials saying they aren’t being trained appropriately for leadership roles, and it’s clear to recognise where the problem lies in the state of future leadership today.
For businesses to meet growing demands, companies must take a proactive stance on developing their employees to acquire the necessary skills required.
With this in mind, discover what it takes to become a future leader and understand the characteristics that lead individuals, teams, and whole businesses to success.
What Is a Future Leader?
A future leader embodies the necessary skills and characteristics required to successfully lead a workforce or team of the future. While setting a vision and executing a strategy is expected from a leader today, achieving these company goals also relies on the ability to motivate, communicate, and inspire a workforce.
Recently, we’ve witnessed workplace relations switch between employer and employee. Issues of work/life balance and the ‘Great Resignation’ of 2022 require leaders today to inhibit greater emotional and social intelligence.
As the future inevitably remains uncertain, a vital characteristic for future leaders is their ability to adapt, innovate, and thrive in conditions of modernity within business and society.
But the successful teams, professionals, and organisations of 2022 and beyond require leaders who can adapt to innovation and adjust to any significant transformations in society, future leaders must also be a step ahead in terms of their strategies and operational functionality.
For example, by 2025, 75% of the workforce will be millennials, requiring most leaders to manage a different generation with distinct values. Gen X leaders hold the most elite leadership roles globally, so a future leader in this bracket should be reading the significance of this generational shift by understanding the motivations required to lead their millennial workforce.
Alongside shifts in generations, the business world is rapidly changing as technology and working conditions continue to develop. Regardless of your era, we expect future leaders to navigate this trajectory while embracing innovative developments or intricate issues as and when they appear.
6 Skills of Future Leaders
Despite the classic saying, no one is “born a leader”. The right to leadership must be earnt by learning both theoretical and practical knowledge.
These techniques enable new leaders to develop the following skills:
1. Emotional Intelligence
Where a strict, regimented leadership style may have worked in past positions, today’s employee landscape paints a different picture. Emotional intelligence allows leaders to understand the complex emotions of themselves and others, so they can help manage chaotic or stressful situations.
An emotionally intelligent leader will successfully handle critical client and workplace relationships, inspiring others and avoiding hostility. Leaders who inhabit empathy perform over 40% higher in employee engagement, decision-making, and coaching.
2. Listening Skills
Everyone knows all good leaders have effective (if not exceptional) communication skills. But a common misconception is only considering how well a leader speaks and not acknowledging how well they listen.
Rather than finishing employees’ sentences or even interpreting because, as a leader, you believe your views are more important, future leaders will take a position to ‘actively listen’.
Some problems are solved by listening intently to clients and employees so you can help remove obstacles and give them the motivation to succeed.
3. Establish Trust
The highest performing teams in the world all have one thing in common – trust. Future leaders will establish “psychological safety” within the group dynamic, where all team members feel safe, so think freely, trusting each other to communicate directly and raise issues.
Trust allows our workplace teams to produce faster results at lower costs. Future leaders will display trust in their workforce and are repaid with more direct communication and higher levels of efficiency and productivity.
4. Develop Others
Being a future leader is not only executing strategy and inspiring results but developing a strong culture of leadership around you. Future leaders go beyond themselves to invest in company growth by recognising and encouraging any leadership talent emerging in the organisation.
Empowering others to achieve goals and unleash their potential is a characteristic that will belong to the successful leaders of our future. Because to be a good leader of tomorrow, you must enjoy leading others to fulfil their potential alongside yourself.
5. Servant Leadership
A future leader will embody the values of a servant leader who leads to serve the needs of others. Servant leadership focuses on the wellbeing of the workforce and their communities.
Rather than prioritising company or business goals as with traditional leadership, servant leadership’s focus remains centred on the wellbeing of their people.
6. Global Citizen
As globalisation continues to reign supreme across society with business and communication, the world has become an ever more interconnected, borderless landscape.
Appreciating new cultures, navigating global markets, and cultivating diverse teams of high-performing individuals will be a challenge our future leaders must face.
Invest in the Best UK Future Leaders Programmes
Becoming or developing a capable future leader requires the necessary training and learning resources. Not all companies have the time or resources to teach their future leaders in-house, so select accredited courses and training programmes instead.
At UKCPD, we provide various award-winning courses designed to develop future leaders of all levels.
Take a look at our ILM Qualifications
